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| Los Angeles Apartment Locator Services : Los Angeles |  | Contents | |
| History |
| The Los Angeles coastal area was occupied by the
Tongva, Chumash, and even earlier Native American peoples for
thousands of years. The Spanish first arrived in 1542, when
Juan Cabrillo visited the area. In 1769, the Spanish returned
to California to stay. In 1771, the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
was founded, thus establishing a permanent presence in the area
and securing Spanish territory. |
| On September 4, 1781, settlers from the San Gabriel
Mission founded the town and named it El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora
la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula, "The
Town of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of the Small Portion".
It remained a small mission and ranch town for decades. |
Olvera Street |
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| Mexican independence from Spain was achieved in
the 1820s, but the greatest change took place in present day
Montebello after the Battle of Rio San Gabriel in 1847, which
decided the fate of Los Angeles. Yankees gained control after
they flooded into California during the Gold Rush and secured
the subsequent admission of California into the United States. |
| Los Angeles was incorporated as a city in 1850.
Railroads arrived when the Southern Pacific completed its line
to Los Angeles in 1876. Oil was discovered in 1892, and by 1923,
Los Angeles was supplying one-quarter of the world's petroleum. |
| Even more important to the city's growth was water.
In 1913, William Mulholland completed the aqueduct that assured
the city's growth and led to the annexation by the City of Los
Angeles, starting in 1915, of dozens of neighboring communities
without water supplies of their own. |
| In the 1920s the motion picture and aviation industries
both flocked to Los Angeles and helped to further develop it.
The city was the proud host of the 1932 Summer Olympics. World
War II brought new growth and prosperity to the city, although
many of its Japanese-American residents were transported to
internment camps for the duration of the war. This period also
saw the arrival of the German Exiles, which included such notables
as Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, and Lion Feuchtwagner. The postwar
years saw an even greater boom as urban sprawl expanded into
the San Fernando Valley. |
| The Watts riots in 1965 reminded the country of
the deep divisions that even the nation's youngest city faced.
The XXIII Olympiad was successfully hosted in Los Angeles in
1984. The city was once again tested by the 1992 Los Angeles
riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake. A city-wide vote on
San Fernando Valley and Hollywood secession was defeated in
2002. |
| Seismic activity |
| Like most areas of California, Los Angeles's history
is punctuated with major earthquakes. The most recent was the
1994 Northridge earthquake, which was centered in the northern
San Fernando Valley. Coming less than two years after the L.A.
riots, the Northridge earthquake was a severe emotional shock
to Southern Californians, in addition to causing billions of
dollars in physical damage. Other major earthquakes include
the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake and the 1971 Sylmar earthquake. |
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